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iPresident Giarftefd^ 






THOMAS NELSON HASKELL. 



With awe pi-ofouui] this tiny, 
Tlie Nation bows to pray 

lu bitter grief; 
All through thu stricken laud 
The broken heartvJ stand, 
And mourn on every hand 

Tlieir martyred Chief. 



The Almi^dity Ruler hears 
His Horrowiug people's leara 

Vail at his feet; 
Makes our just cause his rare, 
Indites and hears our prayer. 
And for us still makes bare 

His mercv seat. 



Bless still our Nation's heail — 
isuccetisor of the dead — 

And keep his life ; 
M'liile armies cease their tread, 
.\nd those who fought and bled 
Rest in their peaceful bed, 

Heal all our strife. 



O, Thou who hast removed 

" Him whom the people loved" — 

Thy servant rare — 
Who gavest him strength and light 
To see and guard the right. 
Still grant Thy holy might 

To men of prayer. 



Comfort each stricken one, 
O God, the Father, Sou 

And Holy Ghost; 
While in our hearts we own 
That here Thy love is known, 
.\nd Thine the only throne 

I »f which we boast. 



Denver, September, 1881. 



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■*?o ll'ic C^,v^cl1ll'■'^c^ C'ittrcu^ in ific "^piciu'ei l3olltl■-cifoll.^c II'k' bail a 
Scptemlier 30, 1881. 



M/: President : I rise to move the adoption of the programme presented for 
the open air meeting to-night. As your committee are aware 1 went to Indiana and 
Ohio at Garfield's request last fall, and risked my life and lost my health by speaking 
to large assemblies out of doors, and rcould not therefore safely speak this evening 
if I would. Nor can I now do justice to the occasion when the nation has scarcely 
risen from her knees at prayer that our great, good President might be preserved, 
and is mingling tears with all the civil world about his lifeless form, as if everybody 
on earth had lost in him an able, a brave, benign and most trusted friend. This is 
an occasion of almost universal sorrow. Her Majesty, the widowed Queen of En- 
gland and Empress of India, weeps to-day with the widow Garfields as if they were 
her peers and good indeed as she. Emperors and diplomatists dispatch their words 
of sympathy with us. The poorest freedman also weeps as if he too had lost a peer 
and friend. Humanity seems utterly heart-broken at this hour. Every man mourns 
apart and every heart and home is draped because of our dreadful loss. And yet 
the people meet in masses to mourn and pour forth their mingled grief because 
Garfield, after all his achievements, usefulness and Gethsemane prayers, is dead and 
passed from the presidential chair to be cherished only above our sight and in the 
loving memories of them that mourn. I knew him well and loved him much, and 
I feel as one indeed bereft. Raised in his Congressional District, educated on its 
scholarship, fitted for college only four miles from his Mentor home, his familiar 
life-scenes are to me like holy ground. The consciences of his constituents are the 
most e.xacting in the world and yet he early won and kept their confidence by his 
ability and worth, and they all weep as if they ne'er would see his like again ; 'tis so 
the Nation weeps. I admire the grandeur of the mountains, and vie with Dr. 
Holmes in his veneration of the tall, mighty trees of the forests that lift their tons 
of timber so well balanced and so majestically toward the stars ; but Garfield rises 
before me more grand than these from his widowed mother's log cabin in the woods 
of that frontier town where the wolves howled by night and the woodman's axe 
echoed in his ears by day, calling his powers early to wake to work and to patriotic 
and pious duty. I cannot go over his history, you are familiar with it. The world 
knows it all by heart, and it is wonderful.- The children have all learned it and 
love it, and it will ennoble their natures and their lives. Young men will look to 
him as a model and move onward and upward. Young women will so admire his 
wife that Miss Rudolph will be remembered with almost a religious veneration for 
her modest virtues, while, as Mrs. Garfield, she will lead millions of wives and 
mothers throughout the world to wish to be and to become as worthy in all their 
ways as she. And O how pitiable is mother Garfield's cry under her weight of grief 
and fourscore years, as she tremblingly e.xclaims, "Why should they wish to kill my 
baby boy! " as if the strong man were back again an infant in her arms of hope and 
faith and love. Of the miscreant assassin 1 have no words to say. If Cain had 
sevenfold punishment, greater than he couldfcear, surely seventy-seven fold is for the 
murderer of Garfield. May God send his Ii\yn Holy Comforter to console Garfield's 
kindred and to sanctify his life and dea'tli to the greater good of our dear country 
he loved and served so well and died to save. I hope the programme of addresses 
for this evening will be adopted and be useful to our people at large. 

Governor Evans seconded the motion and it was adopted. The mt)urning 
assembly at night was immense and impressive. 



K1:V. FROFBSSOR T. N. HASKELL'S 



MEMORIAL ADDP.ESS 



True Greatness and Goodness, 



AS KXKMIM.IFIKI) ]!V 



PKE^iDEN'i' jTiMK? n- mwi^hd. 



Ddivcrcd in Denver, Colo., S,pl. 'Z'), IISSI. 



We stand to-day on a sublime and solemn 
eminence in the history of the world. 
Never before have the civil wants and \^el- 
fare of the human race risen so clearly to 
our view, nor popular goodness and great- 
ness been so plainly seen as a national ne- 
cessity and the goal of everybody's best 
ambition. At no former time has the civil 
world beeo brought into such tender prox- 
imity to one and the same scene and subject 
of sorrow, and animated by one common 
sympathy, induced to study together a new 
human example so uoble and worthy of 
general imitation. Never was there a more 
conspicuous instance of thatt'hristiaB excel- 
lence in private and public life which is 
essential to good civil institutions, than 
has been presented by the late martyred 
president of the United States for the 
admiration and imitation of all classes. 
The secret of his succe.^is and the ennobling 
elements of his history and character are 
now made the study of all the peoples of 
the earth in its present and coming genera- 
tions, and rendered more emphatic and in- 
fluential by his mode of life and the man- 
ner of his death. I stand in awe of his ex- 
ample in the midst of a universal sorrow, 
and imagine myself again seated by his side 
on the lawn shaded from the sun by the 
then happy home mansion at Mentor and 



listening to his words as he showed mo the 
leaf of tke New Testament handed to him by 
one of Moody's messengers on his way to 
the convention hall the morning of his 
nomination as the chief magistrate of this 
great couatry. I cannot, indeed, do 
better than to shape my address 
after the teachings of that passage in 
the fourtli chapter of the Acts of the Apos- 
tles, to which he pointed, as the first printed 
words he saw after his nomination to be 
president. It seemed even theiT to set be- 
fore him the mission of the Messiah as his 
motto and model, and was placed in his hat 
as if to be worn upon his forehead as a sort 
of frontlet or Hebrew phylactery. It reads 
as follows : "Be it known unto you and to 
all the j)eople of Israel that by the name of 
Jesus of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom 
God raised from the dead, even by him 
doth this man stand before you wliole. 
This is the stone which was set at nought of 
you builders, which is become the head of 
the corner. Neither is there salvation in 
any other— for there is none other name un- 
der heaven given among men, whereby we 
must be saved." As he said to me, in tones 
surpassing the tenderest emotions ever 
uttered by the immortal Lincoln, "Is it not 
remarkable that such a passage should be 
handed to him"— our second martyr presi- 



dent^"just then !" when he was going with 
"an anxious heart," as he assured me, to 
be laid a living and dying sacrifice upon the 
most sacred altar of civil moralty and free- 
dom ? From this circumstance in the his- 
toric use of this sacred passage I have of 
necessity, as it were, put before me my suli- 
ject, which is "Sympathy with God in 
Christ— the secret of Garfield's Exalted 
Character and Success." Perhaps it were 
better to put this in the form of a problem, 
and in the method of gradual approach in- 
quire 

WHAT CONSTITUTES TRUE GREATNESS 

and goodness in public and private men ? 
And where is Garfield's rank among them ? 
The eloquent Massillon opened his address 
over the dead body of Louis XIV of France, 
by exclaiming : "God only is great." And 
this so filled the vast assembly with awe 
that they instinctively bowed their heads 
with the profoundest homage. Another 
master of assemblies, mightier and better 
than Massillon, hath said : "There is none 
good but one, that is God." Absolute great- 
ness and goodness are seen only in 
the infinite and perfect President 
of all peoples, and before him 
we would here bow our chastened hearts in 
humblest adoration. There is perhaps no 
event which so impresses upon the popular 
mind the superiority of the Supreme Ruler, 
as the death of a distinguished human 
magistrate in the midst of his most momen- 
tous duties. At such a time all loyal hearts 
exclaim : " Let the Lord alone be exalted ! " 
But by acknowledging the incorporation 
of his imitable perfections into human 
character we thereby contribute to his 
own exaltation and honor. Every 
example of such imitation is to the 
praise of the divene model, and is compara- 
tively good and great according to the de- 
gree of the divine approximation. So when 
one of our senators said to a reporter on the 
morning of the assassination, " President 
Garfield was a great and good man," he 
meant as we all mean by those words to 
assert comparative excellences only, and 
then the assertion is eminently truthful. 
"We are to inquire then, for true greatness 
and goodness in private and historic men, 
in the negative, relative, resultant and real 
or absolute senses. In doing this let us re- 
member the question relates to the public 
good and to our personal welfare, since 
worthy examples are mighty and immortal. 

THE NEGATIVE INQUIRY 

exposes the false estimate too common 
among men. All materialistic methods of 
judging men must be more ore less injurious 
and absiird. For example we read, "There 
was none goodlier than Saul ; from his 
shoulders and upward he was higher than 
any of the people — " and yet his 



memory is abhorent. "In all Tsreal there 
was none praised so much as Absalom, for 
his beauty. He weighed the hair of his 
head at 200 sheckles." Still to this day "Ab- 
salom's pillar in the king's dale" is actu- 
ally stoned in utter detestation. Goliath of 
Gath, who filled the armies of Saul with 
terror, was some ten feet tall, clothed in 
nearly 200 pounds of brass and steel, and 
yet was slain in single combat by a small 
stone from the sling of a mere God-fearing 
stripling. Sardanapolis was so fair that he 
sometimes passed himself for a female, but 
he was so voluptuous that his epitaph and 
motto were: "Let us eat and drink, for to- 
morrow we die !" and he perished at last on 
the funeral pyre with all his elFects and his 
family in the midst of a siege, raised by his 
insolent subjects, whom he had insulted. 
Alexander, to demonstrate his greatness, de- 
termined his own death as a drunkard — 
and, in the midst of his greatest achieve- 
ments, was scarcely less proud of the curve 
in his neck and the curl of his lips than 
poor old Diogenes of his tub and lantern 
whexi commanding his king to keep out of 
his way with his shadow. Common every- 
day wisdom ought to teach better than to 
judge men by their mere fleshly weight and 
proportions — and history is strangely silent 
here in her most important cases. She has 
generally said little or nothing about the 
bodily presence of men most distinguished 
for great souls and important service, and 
Jesus of Nazareth has not a genuine like- 
ness in all the world except in the character 
and lives of siucere Christians. We have no 
account of the bodily appearance of one 
apostle. We must not fcrget, then, it is 
neither the ounces nor the inches of men, 
but rather 

"The lives of great men that remind us 
We may make our lives sublime." 

The beauty of Sardanapolis was good 
merely as an example of basest effeminacy, 
and Goliath of Gath was great only in the 
grossness of his nature. 

A little more refined but scarcely less fal- 
lacious is the assumption that every man 
carries the key to his capacity and character 
in the contour of his face, expression of his 
countenance, as seen when living or repre- 
sented in histrionic mementoes. Although 
we instinctively judge of living men by 
their looks, and cherish fondly and yery 
properly the busts and portraits of those 
who haye deceased in the midst of great 
deeds or after useful examples, still we have 
to answer, it is "the lives of great men" not 
their physical likeness by which we learn 
their proper measure. Some propose judg- 
ing all men by the shape and size of 
a single organ, the brain, as measured by 
the solid bones that contain it — and such 
are of course both historians and prophets — 



but they can never reveal by this method 
the worth of a nuiuiniied Pharaoh nor the 
fatare susceptibilities of a single educated 
Modoc. Admitting the isefal hints of this 
handy method, we still distrust its abitrary 
inches and their arrangements, as yjrossly 
material, if not unjust and injurious, and 
we look for more satisfying methods if hap- 
ly we maj' lind them. 

Even when we have emerged from these 
materialistic means and modes of judgmg 
men, we have still indefinite and discordant 
ideas of the attributes we would determine. 
What is great in the eyes of one is often igno- 
ble in the esteem of others. Some regard men 
good for their greatness, that massive mental 
energv by which even bad men bear down 
before them all opposition, suggesting the 
exclamation : "O, it is excellent to have a 
giant's strength !" Of course these omit the 
antithetic part to this quotation. Others 
esteem men great for their goodness and 
more wisely say : 

"However it be, it seems to me 
• 'Tis only noble to be good." 

Some suppose greatness and goodness are 
unlike, but always associated together, 
while others assume that they are seldom 
united in one person. Napoleon and Alex- 
ander are usually called great without 
thinking of goodness, while John Howard 
and Florence Xightingale are as often re- 
garded good without a thought of greatness. 
Some parents set apart their sons of talent 
for the law, and of tender conscience for the 
gospel, as if talent and truth were incompat- 
ible. One distinguished writer says : ''The 
good may be weak, be indolent." And yet 
another gives the sentiment : 

"Tliere were some soul of goodness in things 

evil 
Would men observingly distill it out." 

Some discover the highest goodness in 
courtliness of bearing, honoring most a 
Chesterfield's accomplishments, or the grace 
and dignitj'^ with whieh a man may don his 
robes and read his ritual or perform the cer- 
emonies of his order, while others still, 
with friend-like simplicity, would assert in 
their broad hats and narrow coats : 
"My prayer, far better understood 
lu acts than weds, is simply doing good." 
Graceful, ungrudging hospitality, is jastly 
regarded indicative of a large heart and a 
generous nature. The good Samaritan is 
set forth as a model in this respect, even bj' 
our Saviour ; yet one very careful observer 
declares that much of apparent hospitality 
is hollow and assures us 

"Whoe'er has traveled life's dull round. 

Where'er his stages may have been, 
Must sigli to think how oft he's found 
Tlie warmest welcome in an inn." 
The idea of greatness with some is insep- 
arable from ostentation and wealth, with 
others from royalty or rank, bat both irre- 
spective of right. The most disgusting de- 



velopment of "shoddy" shows the highest 
esteem of the one, while the veriest sot or 
simpleton, if he have an illustrious sire, se- 
cures the best graces of the other. Some 
would make notoriety a test and esteem 
Thomas a' Kempis as great, simply be- 
cause his little book about "Imitating 
Christ" had a big run, but such would 
consider quite superior still the bloody 
Timur with his hecatombs of human skulls. 
It is not always safe to judge of men by the 
public sentiment of their times concerning 
them. In some respects historic men may 
be measured by contemporary opinion — but 
it often happens that the greatest and the 
best are esteemed during life, as the worst 
and the least. In nearly every period there 
have been some "despised and rejected of 
men" of their time, who have risen "to 
glory, honor and eternal life" in the subse- 
quent annals of the world. 

Nor may we judge of living and historic 
men wholly by their surroundings, or vis- 
ible success in life, or subsequent events of 
which they were the movers. Two twin 
brothers have been known to share the 
same bed and bench in college, graduate 
with like honors and enter the same profes- 
sion with equal promise. But when a great 
good man is sought for public service, "one 
is taken and the other left." An English 
woman once said to me, when looking at 
Abdul Aziz and Albert Edward at the same 
time, "The sultan certainly seems superior, 
but we must think of the noble nrospects of 
our prince." The rule by which she judged 
was just, and yet no prophet can unfold the 
future of the prince of Wales, while Abdul 
Aziz fell almost unmourned at the hand of 
a distinguished but dastardly assassin. It is 
also sometimes true, as Solomon says, that 
"A wise ehild is better than an old and foolish 
king." 

Men are sometimes found to be according 
to their own early anticipations and hopes. 
The patriarch Joseph had in the dreams of 
the night and the aspirations of the days of 
his boyhood most wonderful ideas of his 
future greatness. Nor is this confined alone 
to the good. Alexander and Mohammed 
on the one hand, and Michael Angelo, 
Henrj' Havelock and Abraham Lincoln on 
the other, all had like presentiments of pros- 
pective importance. And yet we now see 
that many a youth and hale alumnus of the 
schools fancies the whole world within his 
sling waving round his hand at will: but 
others perceive his world is but an inflated 
child's baloon that in his giddy presumption 
may slip from his hand and sail off among 
the spires and trees. Even good men and 
great have also often failed to find or feel 
the true measure of themselves until the 
very last. Some, like Cicero, have thought 
more highly of themselves than men ought 
to think ; others have been distinguished by 
their unconscious capacities of good, while 
many more no doubt have never known 
their real worth to the world, like the 
nameless authors of "Now I lay me down 
to sleep," and "The curfew must not toll to- 
night." 



"We might continue this kind of inquiry 
to any length, but we have now gone far 
enough to see that true ideas of excellence 
must exclude the false in every form and 
rise gradually into the absolute and true. 

WE LOOK NOW AT THE WORLD, 

relatively to find real worth. Here we see 
men must be estimated, as themselves, in 
their varied responsibilities. The inherent 
ability of each, his education, attending in- 
fluences, 'providential position and poten- 
tial purposes of good, engrafted on the cur- 
rent events of successive ages, should all 
come into our account in estimating him. He 
must be considered great and good in com- 
parative degrees, passing up in our esti- 
mates from the material to the mental, 
from the mental to the moral and from the 
moral to the divine. Men have learned in 
this enlightened age and especially through- 
out this Christian land, to consider citizens 
and public servants in their relations to so- 
ciety and to the Supreme Ruler, and history 
has also for centuries refused to say that all 
princes, popes and presidents, are ex officio 
et exaniino, great and good. 

There are the intrinsic worth or weakness, 
and the extrinsic aids or disadvantages to be 
associated in our estimates always. The ele- 
ment of Providence must be admitted as 
pre-eminent. 

"There's a Divinity which shapes our ends. 

Rough hew them as we will." 

The idea of a strictly "self-made man" is 
simply absurd. We may not thus deify any 
man's individuality. We cannot easily 
eliminate any character from its extrinsic 
concomitants and causes. Also, there is 
often much doubt as to the auxiliary facts. 
We know John Faust or some one, aided by 
various antecedent suggestions, invented the 
printing art. About the same time some 
other person, in a like manner, invented 
common paper to receive the printers' im- 
pressions, which was almost as important to 
the public. When asked which was the 
greater and better of these two contempor- 
ary and coadjutant benefactors, we can only 
say : He who obeyed the best impulses and 
suggestions and accomplished the best pur- 
poses was the greater and better man. 

Columbus, inspired with ideas of other 
explorers, became one of the best and brav- 
est of Christian benefactors. His giandeur 
of plan and persistency of purpose to find 
"the new heavens and new earth," predict- 
ed for the use of God's people, show that he 
was a man of immense moral motive power, 
and so when he discovered this western hem- 
isphere he consecrated it to the will of his 
heavenly father and called it San Sal- 
vador after the name of his "Holy 
Saviour." His historic worth is usually 
weighed by the vast world he won from 
oblivion and opened to the virtues and joys 
of Christian civilization. His work seems 
born of his own indomitable will — it was 
born of God's providence, which had been 
obeyed bjr his predecessors and which pre- 
pared him for the purpose and made him 
physically and morally as fearless as a mar- 
tyr. 

The highest honor, here and always, is 
due to the divine purpose that is seen every- 
where pressing forward the process of ripen- 
ing this whole round world, that hangs 
clustered among the stars, on that invisible 
gravitation stem — the divine -volition, which 



is at the same time weaving the lives of all 
useful men into the liber vera, the true bark 
of history's living tree, which works the 
grandeur of their faith into even govern- 
ment affairs, forming the divinely welded 
links of succeeding ages, the intertwined 
and well-protected strands of that electric 
cable, which lies imbeded in the sea of time 
and runs from land to land, connecting in 
one age most distant shores and epochs, 
bringing together all human hearts, ming- 
ling in the Heavenly Father's bottle all hu- 
manity's tears, and linking the first para- 
dise of earth with the farthest paradise of 
heaven, by means of that subtle 
and ceaseless providence that 

presses even human wrath into heavenly 
service and makes "all things work together 
for good to them that love God." So we 
see all men of worth are weighed with the 
providential hand pressing on the scale, 
and there they must be aggregated with the 
public mass as self-controling and com- 
ponent parts. Thus, Washington, Frank- 
lin and .Jefferson, Webster, Wil- 
son and Ijincoln must all be 
estimated, and none felt these essential facts 
so much as they. 

We also find that there is something 
always to detract from the deserts of such 
distinguished men, some defects of heart or 
habit to hurt their history. They may be 
stars of the first magnitude, or even central 
suns, around which many planets with 
their satelites revolve — but still the sun has 
the inevitable spots on the surface, issuing 
usually from some inherent source. Nearly 
all, even the best of men, have, evinced 
something that looks bad. 

How much we are to detract from the 
meeds of great and good men on this ac- 
count, is not easily ascertained. The Greek 
sophists and Roman senators were great 
and good, as it were, in one or two direc- 
tions, and awry in nearly every other way. 
In the same manner, the biblical believers, 
though more generally excellent, have near- 
ly all some natural and exceeding faults, 
unllinchingly confessed, which do 
detract from their measure as model men. 
We feel sadly when we read of David's 
heinous sins, and can hardly accept his cost- 
ly penitential psalms as a substitute for that 
life-long victory over every lust which his 
example should have shown to all coming 
times. 

So, since the inspired ages, no one person, 
public or private, seems to have been a per- 
fect success. Although we delight in Wes- 
ley, we wish he had chosen a more con- 
genial wife. We love to honor the Swiss 
reformer, and yet we wish John Calvin had 
not been in the least implicated in the sen- 
tence of Servetus. We have to abate some- 
thing from our veneration of Coleridge, 
when we read his "Aphorisms," but remem- 
ber his love of opium. The sad and sunny 
Cowper, as seen now through his melan- 
choly moods, borderi'ng on a suicidal in- 
sanity, and then again through the mellow 
light of his charming hymns of hope and 
consecration and the glistening dew drops on 
that day when he received his "Mother's 
Picture," is one whom we always wish to 
put in the balance lovingly and gently. As 
to himself we can hardly call him great. He 
thought of himself as never good, yet 
he stands in some sense a model among 



both good and great, through heaven's 
abounding grace. Milton's motive power as 
patriot and poet was largolv moral, while his 
thoughts and strokes were also massy, and we 
admit him to be relatively as good as great. 
When we find Shakespeare nowhere wrote 
with an uppermost moral purpose, his meed 
of honor as a good man is indeed impaired, 
while Sir Francis Bacon's philosophy on the 
one hand and bribery on the other lead us 
to almost excuse the charge of his distin- 
guished countryman that he was the "wisest, 
brightest, meanest of mankind." He was 
overcome with the blandishments of elegant 
society for want of the indwelling spirit of 
God in Christ in his heart and character. 
AVe have here then another element still to be 
adnutted to our account. That is the re- 
newing and sustaining grace of (!od within 
the individual heart. It was this that made 
the prophet Daniel — that captive boy and 
faultless primeminister of several successive 
emperors and kings — the . perfect model to 
which his Maker twice pointed with almost 
apparent pride. There is to this day such 
superhuman aid adapted to the human 
heart and life, and many historic men 
have laid hold upon it with a te- 
nacity that teaches wherein they placed 
their highest hopes. This supernatural 
system of success and safety, is supremely 
suited to both luen and states, leading indi- 
vidual members of society to see and seek 
what is right and wise and thereby to in- 
corporate their own convictions and char- 
acters into the compacts and constitutions 
and laws which they originate for the great- 
er unity and good of man. The wisest men 
bear witness to this superhuman work, and 
their testimony from experience is the best 
beneath the sun. They say : "We have been 
helped along our way and in our worK Dy 
a wisdom not our own. We have a knowl- 
edge of this heavenly help and the conscious 
reception of ita holy truths into our hearts 
to lead us to success and usefulness. This 
we ac(}uired not so much from reasoning as 
from the reunion of our hearts to our 
Heavenly Father's love and laws." This is 
a fact, however, we must confess, of which 
those cannot fairly judge who have not felt 
it as a new and nobler nature in themselves. 
The fact is, nevertheless, philosophical 
and clear. Such principles of Christian 
virtue invigorate every power and purpose — 
they strengthen the mind, refine the sensi- 
bilities and give divine direclion and energy 
to the will, securing in some sense the very 
" life of God in the sowls" and lives of such 
great, good men. By this means they evi- 
dently more clearly understand the wants of 
the world and develop a better manhood 
and work out in themselves and in society 
nobler destinies, because " it is God that 
worketh in theni to will and do of his good 
pleasure." The only perfect example, how- 
ever, of a complete incarnation of the divine 
will and character was " the man Christ 
Jesus," who is now become " our Lord Je- 
sus Christ." 

AHSOI.WTE GREATNESS AND GOOPNESS 

are in Jesus Christ as a complete model, 
and in the words of Pilate, when he led him 
forth to martyrdom, we therefore say of 
him: "Behold the man !" In his historic 
life and power we find all the essential attri- 
butes of greatness and goodness in full per- 
fection and full play. When the lloman 
sceptre ruled the civil world and required 



that all men honor C;esar Augustus, .Tesus 
of Nazareth was growing up in hun-.ble ob- 
scurity, working at the carpenter's trade, 
but preparing to receive "all power in heav- 
en and earth " with the pre-existent 
glory which he had "with the Father be- 
fore the world was." In a few years the 
city of the August C:i\sar was set on 
fire by his successor, and Tacitus tells 
us, "The royal incendiary charged with the 
crime and punished with the most studied 
severity that class of persons whom the 
people commonly call Christians. The 
originator of that name," he says, "was one 
Christ, who in the days of Tiberius (';i'sar 
suffered death by the {)rocurator I'ilate." 

Now, this great Latin historian no doubt 
despised those Christians to whom Nero 
applied the punishment for his own peni- 
tentiary offenses. He as evidently felt no 
interest in Christ after whom the5 were 
"vulgarly called," but long ago the symbol 
of sovereignty at Rome was the instrviment 
of Christ's crucifixion, and while all the 
august Ciesars are well nigh forgotten, and 
never had any ennobled and ennobling 
imitators, Christ's example is filling the 
world with faithful and affectionate follow- 
ers, and the divinity that wrought the will 
of God in him is going forth to-day to 
govern men and states. We know not which 
to admire most, the simplicity and sublimity 
of his model life in the flesh, or the sweet- 
ness and supremacy of his influence upon 
society and time. We see in his experience 
goodness "hated without cause" — greatness 
evinced under unmerited suffering 
and scorn — goodness and greatness 
poised in mighty condescension 
on his own conscious innocence and power. 
Revealing himself in the humblest of human 
beginnings he teaches the i)Oorest parent to 
hope for the noblest destiny for their off- 
spring. Being subject to parental authority 
and yet eager to ask and answer moral ques- 
tions, he teaches children to obey their nat- 
ural guardians and to seek to understand 
and do the will of God. As himself a com- 
mon working man, he encourages useful in- 
dustry of every kind. As a faithful, philan- 
thropic minister and teacher, he educated 
well his disciples and "went about doing 
good," preaching in the symigogues and 
private houses, on the hillsides and by the 
sea, that his followers should do good by all 
ai>propriate means. And, choosing his 
apjstles from the various walks and social 
ranks, he teaches the whole brotherhood of 
man and adapts his truth, and life and death 
to all,' not forgetting even the mariners in 
the midnight storm, nor the weeping sisters 
of Lazarus or the widow of Nain when 
burying her only son. In his last ascent to 
the holy city he weeps over his people's sins 
and the consequent sorrows of their country 
and destruction of its capital, that all citi- 
zens might feel a like solicitude for the sal- 
vation of men and states. He teaches even 
in Gethsemane the grandest lessons of sup- 
plicating and yet submissive prayer, ever 
known, even superior to that sublime 
example so lately seen when all Christen- 
dom uttered the prolonged and prayerful cry 
that if it be possible our cup of bereavement 
might pass us by. Yielding to the Father's 
will he went forth to death, but on his way 
he turned aside with sanitary touch to heal 
the wound inflicted by the sword which he 
had bidden to buy, and in his dying agonies 



he addressed his mother a few tender words 
and then uttered his dying cry : "It is 
finished!" and his mediatorial martyr life is 
done — the perfect model of all men is dead ! 
"Being delivered up by the determinate 
counsel and foreknowledge of God and with 
wicked hands both crucified and slain," he 
shows the sovereignty and sin of every 
martyrdom before or since that is at all like 
his, so his postnumous fame with theirs 
shall last and live forever, with continual 
and uniting increase of power. As we re- 
call his words we are awed by his conscious 
as well as his historic goodness : "Which of 
you convicteth me of sin ?" We are helped 
and humoled before his conscious, as well 
as his historic greatness : "Be of good cheer, 
I have overcome the world, and will be 
with you to the end." Thus his principles, 
his presence and his helping power have, as 
Lincoln said, "put fallen men upon their 
feet again," till they are, all round the 
world, having "Christ formed within the 
hope of glory" for both society and souls, 
for men and states. He is thus, 
as the old Hebrew seers foresaw, "The gover- 
nor among the nations." The supreme law 
of the United States is now, with 
its amendments' the application 

of his golden rule and its 

preamble was prompted by hiir'self. Our 
young men, inspired by his martyr spirit, 
clasped to their breasts the shafts of death 
that liberty might live, and our young 
women are willing to go into all the world 
to raise up woman to the noble rank of her 
who by her heroic devotion drove away so 
long the shafts of death from our dear presi- 
dent's heart, becoming thereby the admira- 
tion of all the world, the peeress of both 
empress or queens and a fitting representa- 
tive of a million cultured Christian wives 
and mothers in this western world which 
Columbus and the colonists first 
consecrated to the cross. 

PRESIDENT GARFIELD 

was pre-eminently Christ-like, and therein 
ranks high as great and good. It were not 
well to particularize, perhaps, the numerous 
points of resemblance in their lives and 
characters — for Christ came into such a hu- 
man life that it might be so imitated in 
various ways in all lands and times. Yet 
we can hardly overlook the faith and 
hope of the two mothers. 

Mary of Nazareth and Beth- 
lehem, and Eliza Ballou Garfield of northern 
Ohio, as they receive their offspring con- 
secrate to the Holy Ghost, one the mother of 
the Son of God, the other praying that her 
son might be a follower of the Saviour and 
a wise and useful Christian citizen. The 
poverty in which her "baby boy" began the 
struggle of life prepared him to appreciate 
the privations of the Galileean child and 
youth as he grew in stature worked at build- 
ing houses and blessing his mother's hum- 
ble lot. O, what language can do justice' to 
these examples of maternal love repaid by 
filial piety among the praying and industri- 
ous poor. In James A. " Garfield, like 
Jesus, the Son of God, from his humble be- 
ginning to his high work in educational and 
public life, it is profitable to see the human- 
divine example imitated and obeyed with a 
supreme devotion to the Heavenly Father's 
will. His steps were so rapid and divinely 
attended that they almost seem unreal. 
Descended from English, Gallic and German 



ancestry and born as poor as the renowned 
babe of Bethlehem, we see him watch his 
wan and widowed mother split rails to fence 
in her little cornfield, and count the ears 
to see how long lier scanty harvest could 
keep her children from starving. Then at 
fourteen we see him shaking the saw and 
shoving the plain of tlie carpenter, at six- 
teen he is driving to and fro the inter-state 
commerce in the lieavily loaded canal boats, 
at eighteen he is asking a student of human 
nature to tell whether he has 
stamina enough to become a 
student and enter the semi- 

nay at Chester. At twenty-one he is a 
teacher in the public schools of his county, 
at twenty three he enters Williams' college, 
attracted thither by one kind word from its 
president. At twenty-six he graduates with 
the highest philosophical honors, at twen- 
ty eight he is president of Hiram college, 
at twenty-nine he is the youngest member 
of the Ohio senate, at thirty-one he is col- 
onel of the Forty second Ohio regiment 
composed largely of his old friends and 
students, and soon at the head of a brigade 
is seen routing the rebels under the rotund 
Humphrey Marshall, helping General Buel 
in his fight at Pittsburg Landing, taking 
a leading part in the siege of Corinth. At 
thirty-two was made chief of stafT of the 
army of the (Cumberland and made a major- 
general for his courage and ability in the 
battle of Chicamauga, at thirty-three suc- 
ceeded the venerable Joshua R. Gidi-lings in 
congress from the" famous nineteenth dis- 
trict of Ohio till at forty-eight he was elected 
to the United States senate and the next 
November, at forty-nine, he was chosen 
l)resident of the United States and in the 
fiftieth year of his life was shot by Guiteau, 
the assassin. In his early youth he pro- 
fessed to be a Christian disciple and was 
never ashamed of the name nor swerved 
from the most hearty and heroic imitation 
of the Saviour. As an educator and preach- 
er he was apostolic — as a deliberator, arbiter 
and legislator, he was eloquent and able, 
learned and laborious — surpassing in that 
respect both John Adams and Henry Wil- 
son, who were marvels of influential in- 
dustry—and as president his short adminis- 
tration is the most memorable in our exe- 
cutive annals "for its rapid and splendid 
statesmanship," its reformation of the 
postal, the civic and the diplomatic 
service, its indictment and dissolution of a 
band of conspirators against the public 
treasury ; the refunding of the public 
debt upon greatly reduced rates of inter- 
est, and above all, the vindication of the 
presidential prerogatives and duties with all 
due deference to the rights and dignities of 
his constitutional advisers. For all these 
wonderful works he was providentially and 
adequately fitted. He was indeed "fearfully 
and wonderfully made." His physical frame 
was large, endurant and full of life and ac- 
tivity. His niental powers were magnifi- 
cent and his moral, sublime. He seemed 
the completest' man I ever saw. Daniel 
Webster's person did not impress me as 
more imposing and hishatin the Pennsylya- 
nia museum would have scarcely covered 
Garfield's brow. But still more magnifi- 
cent was Garfield's moral courage, modeled 
after the spirit of Christ and his noblest 
Christian martyrs. My friend and class- 
mate, General and Ex-Governor Cox, told 



me how he and Garfield in the Ohio legisla- 
ture spent whole nigtits hi prayer to know 
what God would have tlieiu do for the pro- 
tection of ihis (Jhrislian country at the open- 
iiiL'of ihe war. This statement was made just 
before (Jarlield rose to dedicate on the .id of 
July, LSSO, the soldiers monument at I'aiiis- 
ville. In a few moTnents the nominee for 
president, aware that his every word would 
be read and rei)eated by every voter in the 
nation, arose above the vast sea of heads 
and pointing to the new and granite struc- 
ture before him, said: 

"WilAT noES THAT MOND.MENT MICAN? 

"That monument means a world of mem- 
ories and a world of deeds, a world of tears 
and a world of glories. You know, thous- 
ands know what it is to oiler up your life to 
the country, and that is no small ihing, sis 
every soldier knows. Let me put the ques- 
tion to you for a moment. Suppose your 
country in the awful embodied form of ma- 
jestic law, should stand before you ami say : 
'1 want your life — come up here on this 
platform and offer it.' How many would 
walk up before iliat majestic presence and 
say : 'Here am I ; take thi.s life and use it 
for your >i;reat needs.' And yet, almost two 
millions of men made that answer. That is 
one of the monument's meanings. 

"But, my friends, let me try you a little 
further. To give up life is much, for it is to 
give up wife, and home, and child, and am- 
bition, and all — almost all. But let me test 
you this way again. Suppose that awful 
majestic form should call out to you and 
say : 'I ask you to give up health and drag 
yourself, not dead, but half alive, through a 
miserable existence for long years until you 
perish and die in your crippled and hope- 
less condition. I ask you to do that.' And 
it calls for a higher reach of j)atriotisiu and 
self sacrifice. But hundreds of thousaudsof 
our soldiers did that. That is what the mon- 
ument means also. 

"But let me ask you to go one step further. 
Suppose your country should say : 'Come 
here, upon this platform, and in my name 
and for my sake consent to be idiots, consent 
that your very brain and iatellect shall be 
broken down into hoi^ele.ss idiocy for my 
sake; how many could be found to make 
that venture? And yet thousands did that 
with their eyes wide open to the horrible 
consequence. One hundred and eighty 
thousand of our soldiers were prisoners of 
war. and among them, when death was 
stalking, when famine was climbing up in- 
to their hearts, and when idiocy was tlireat- 
ening all that was left of their intellects, the 
gates of their prison stood open every day if 
they would just desert their Hag and enlist 
uiiiter the llag of the enemy, and out of 
18§,000 not two per cent ever received the 
liberation from death, starvation, idiocy and 
all that might come to them ; but they took . 
all these sufferings in preference to going 
back upon the llag of their country and the 
glory of its truth. Great God, was ever 
such measure of patriotism reached by any 
men upon this earth before? That is what 
your monument means. By the stibtle 
che'iiistry that no man knows, all the blood 
that was shed by our brethren, all the lives 
that were thus devoted, all the great grief 
that was felt, at last crysUilized itself into 
granite and rendered immortal the great 
truths for which they died, and it stands 



tliere to-day. That is what your monument 

means." 

As he thus spoke, so near^that liis very 
breath fell upon me, he seemed himself all 
radiant and again ready if need be for the al- 
tar, and I felt like adding the exclamation : 

God I how tills hmd ktows rich in royal blood, 
Poured out uiion it to its Vitiiiost length, 

The iufeuse of a nation's .saciitice, 
'I'he wrested oll'erin;; of a nation's strength ! 

It 's the fostiliest laud beneath the sun ! 
'Tis priceles-i, purchiiscli-ssi And not a rood 

But hath its title wri'ten dear, and signed 
In some slain hero's consecrated blood I 

And this declaration is rendered more in- 
tense by the nuinner of (iarfield's death and 
the specific principles for which he laid 
down his life at last. He seemed, indeed, to 
have some high [iresentiment of his pros- 
pective sacrifice. He said to me, when we 
sat in the shade of his house, June 21, IS.SO, 
"I did not want to run this race for the pres- 
idency, which means either to be defeated 
and perhaps laid aside from public useful- 
ness forever, or to be elected to the mcst 
overwhelming work ever laid upon a will- 
ing public servant." He then spoke of the 
particular duties that would devolve on the 
incoming i)resident, prominent among 
which would be the establishment of cor- 
dial relations between the national legisla- 
ture and the executive, and maintaining the 
rights and meeting the responsibility of the 
chief magistratfc in the matter of the 
civil and diplomatic service. He said 
the old Koman senator and republican 
Martyr Cicero, in his work dc ojiciix, had 
suggested te him many grand principles 
concerning what public servants owed to 
their country, and he hoped if elected to 
hold all his appointees toa faithful apprecia- 
tion of the responsibilities of their respective 
positions. It was, no doubt, because of his 
deep sense of his duties as president, and 
his obligations to ^11 the people, that his 
life was at last again put in jeopardy. 
Whether he anticipated this when he opened 
his heart so plainly to me I know not; but 
when he sent his son Irwin for his hat to 
show me the words which I first quoted, he 
said, with great solemnity and simplicity, 
"I of course have not the vanity or the pro- 
fanity to apply that passage to myself, ex- 
cept so far as I am in sympathy with the 
Saviour, as his representative and servant;" 
and his words, "Is it not remarkable that 
that passage should have been handed to 
nie just then?" were tremulous with emo- 
tion. Now I could see a sort of premoni- 
tion in his accents. That he had martyr- 
liKe forebodings will be readily admitted. 
Even the night before his inauguration his 
words to his colh ge classmates were won- 
derfully predictive. He said: 

"Classmates, to me there is something ex- 
ceedingly pathetic in this reunion. In every 
eye before me I see the light 
of friendship and love, and I am 
sure it is reflected back to each one of you 
from my inmost heart. For twentj'-two 
years, with the exception of the last few 
days, I have been in the public service. To- 
night I am a private citizen. To-morrow I 
shall be called to resume new responsibili- 
ties, and on the day after the broadside of 
the worlds wrath will strike, it will strike 
hard I I know it, and you will know it. 
Whatever may happen to me in the future, 
I shall feel that I can always fall back upon 



the shoulders and hearts of the class of '5(5 
for their approval of that ^hich is right, 
and for their qjiaritablejudgment wherein I 
may come short in the discharge of my pub- 
lic duties. You may write down in your 
books now the largest percentage of blun- 
ders which you think I will be likely to 
make, and you will be sure to lind in the 
end that I have made more than vou have 
calculated — many more ! 

"This honor comes to me unsought ! I 
have never had the presidential fever — not 
even for a day — nor have 1 it to-night. I 
have no feeling of elation in view of the po- 
sition I am called upon to fill. I would 
thank God were I to-day a free lance in the 
senate or tlie house. But it is not to be ! 
And I will go forward to meet the responsi- 
bilities and discharge the duties that are be- 
fore me with all the firmness and ability 1 
can command. I hope you will be able 
conscientiously to approve my conduct, and 
when I return to private life I wish you to 
give me another meeting with the class." 

These tender words of presentiment are 
not surpassed by even the Martyr Lincoln's 
larewell words at Springfield. Those of you 
who are familiar with Socrates' address to 
the Athenian authorities just before his 
martyrdom may see a remarkable resem- 
blance between the valadictions of these 
great and good men, but all will observe the 
striking similarity between CJarlield's meet- 
ing with his classmates and tlie INIessiah's 
pathetic meeting with his disciples on his 
near ai>proach to death. How sadly did our 
Saviour foretell bis trial "to-morrow and the 
day following" when the Shepherd should 
be smitten and the sheep mourn as having 
no shepherd. And how intensely full of 
pathos and of prescience are our last mar- 
tyred president's words tlie night before his 
inauguration : "To me there is something 
exceedingly pathetic in this re-union. To- 
morrow I shall be called to assume new re- 
sponsibilities, and the day after tlie broad- 
side of the world's wrath will strike! It will 
strike hard!" 

Audit did strike. Not «nlj' did disap- 
pointed politicians and the exposed robbers 
of the people's treasury pour forth tlieir 
wordy wrath upon him, but even the proud 
and factional press of a portion of his own 
party denounced his moral daring and dis- 
tinguished public men in the United States 
senate defied it, after a disgraceful dead-lock 
of many days for the spoils of ofiice and by 
transferring the second vice president 
to a different party endangered his 
successor, while he was smitten 
down by the incarnation of their 
displeasure. I stand abashed before this 



horrid, heartrending spectacle, and can re- 
call no case of assassiuation that can be 
considered so astounding and cruel, and no 
martyrdom where the victim suffered more 
clearly in defence of Christian truth and vir- 
tue. As the tallest pine of the forest is 
sought by the savage to light up and burn 
down as a signal, so Garfield, the majestic 
and peerless chief magistrate was selected 
that the whole world might see our coun- 
try's sins and her sorrows, and yet all come 
and condole together in the tenderest and 
most truth-loving sympathy. As the cross 
was the crowning of Christ's mission, so 
Garfield's sufferings in his slow tortures of 
martyrdom have made him intensely, im- 
mensely immortal. It is like the assassina- 
tion of Abner, when King David led the 
burial procession, weeping as he went, and 
saying : " Know ye not tliat a prince and a 
great man bath fiillen this day in Israel." 
And as the sad king apostrophised tlie dead 
saying : "As a man falleth before wicked men, 
so feliest thou ; "thus does the whole civil- 
ized world say the great and good Garfield 
fell I All nations are now praying : "God 
pity the martyr's old mother, his widow 
and her five fatherless children ! God pity, 
preserve and aid, ^'resident Chester A. 
Arthur, and may he wear unsullied the 
mantle of his martyred predecessor !" And 
I conclude by saying : May tlie prayer with 
whicli Garfield closed his address the last 
moment I saw him at the foot of the monu- 
ment for his fallen soldiers be realized be- 
yond his most sanguine expectatious. He 
said : "What does that monument teach us? 
It is not a lesson of revenge. It is not a les- 
son of wrath. It is the grand, sweet, broad 
lesson of the immortality of a truth that we 
hope will soon cover, as with the grand 
sbecbinah of light and glory all parts of 
this republic from the lakes to the gulf. I 
once entered a house in old Massachusetts 
where over its door were two crossed 
swords. One was tbe sword carried by tbe 
grandsire of its owner on the field of Bunker 
Hill, and the other was a sword carried by 
the English grandsire of the wife on the 
same field and on the other side of the con- 
flict. Uuder those crossed swords, in the 
restored harmony of domestic peace lived a 
happy and contented and free family under 
the light of our republican liberties. I trust 
the time is not far distant, when under the 
crossed swords and the locked shields of 
America's north and south our people shall 
sleep in peace and rise in liberty, and love 
and harmony, under the union of our flag 
of stars." This prayer is answered. His 
blood" has sealed tbe union of the states and 
the nations. 



C(Fl"ci^ t-fiG Wsu/i'iat. 



BY OMVKR WKNDKLL HOLMES. 



Fallen wilh autumn's falling leaf. 

Eip yet the summer's noon was p^st, 
Our friend, our guide, our trusted chief— 

What words can match a woe so vast? 

And whose the chartered claim to speak 
The saired srief where all have part; 

When sorrow saddens every cheek 
And broods in every aching heart. 

Yet Nature prompts the burnins phrase 
Tluit thrills the linshed and shrouded hall- 

Th<> loud lantent, the sorrowing: praise, 
The silent tear that love lets falls. 

In loftiest verse, in lowliest rhyme. 
Shall sirive unblanied the minstrel choir— 

The singers of the newh rn t me. 
And trembling age with outworn lyre. 

No room for pride, no place for blame— 
We fling our blossouison the grave. 

Pale, scentless, faded— aH we claim, 
This only— what we had we gave. 

Ah, could the grief of all who mourn 

Bend in one voice its bitter cry. 
The wall to heaven's high arches borne 

Would echo through the caverned sky. 



O happiest land whose peaceful choice 
Fills with breath the empty throne! 

God, speaking through the i>eople"s voice. 
Has made that voice for once his own. 

No angry passion shakes the State 
Wh' se weary servant seeks for rest— 

And who could fear that scowling hate 
Would strike at that unguarded breast? 

He stands— miconscions of his doom, 
In manly stren,i;tli. ei'ecl, sevene- 

Aromid liim Summer spreads her bloom — 
He fads— what horror clothes the scene ! 

How swift the sudden Hash of woe 
\* here all was bright a-s childhood's dream, 

As if from heaven's etherial bow 
Had leaped the lightning's arrowy gleam ! 

B ot the foul deed from history's page- 
Let not the aU-betraying sun 

Blush for the day that stains an age 
When murder's blackest wreath was won. 



Pa'e on his couch the sufferer lies. 
The weary battle-ground of pain : 

Lo Tf tends his pillow, science tries 
Her every art, alas! in vain. 

The strife endures how long ! how long ! 

Life, death seem balanced in the scale, 
W^hile round his bed a viewless throng 

Awaits each morrow's changing tale. 

In realms the desert ocean parts 

What myriads watch with tear-filled eyes, 
His pulse-heats echoing in their hearts. 

His breathings counted with their sighs ! 



Slowly the stores of life are spent, 
yet hope still battles with despair; 

Will Heaven not yield when knees are bent? 
Answer. O Thoii that hearest prayer ! 

But silent is tlie bra/.en sky; 

On swet'ijs the meteor's threatening train- 
Unswerving Nature's mute reply. 

Bound in her adamantine chain. 

Not our- the verdict to decide 

Whom death shall claim or skill shall save ; 
The hero's life though Heaven denied. 

It gave our land a martyr's grave. 

Nor count the teaching vainly sent 
How human hearts their griefs may share— 

The lesson woman's love has lent. 
What hope may do, what faith can bear ! 

Farewell ! the leaf-strewn earth enfolds 
Our st;iy, our pride, our hopes, our fears; 

And autiimn'sgolden sun beholds 
A Nation bowed, a world in tears. 



BY JULIA WABD HOWE. 



Our sorrow sends its shadow round the Earth. 
So brave, so true ! A hero from his birth ! 
The plumes of Empire moult, in mourning draped, 
The lightning's message by our tears is shaped. 

Lif s vanities that blossom for an hour 
Heap on his funeral car their fleeting flower. 
Commerce forsakes her temples, blind and dim, 
And pours her lardy gold, to homage him. 

The notes of griet to age familiar grow ^ 

Before the sad privations all must know; 
But the majestic cadence which we hear 
To-day, is new in either hemisphere. 

What crown is this, high hung and hard to reach, 
Whose glory so outshines our laboring speech ? 
The crown of Honor, pure and unbetrayed; 
He wins the spurs who bears the knightly aid. 

While royal babes incipient empire hold. 

And, for bare prruuise, gra^p thf scepter's gold. 

This man such service to his age did bring 

That they who knew him servant, hailed him king. 

Ill poverty his infant couch was spread ; 
His tender hands soon wrought for daily bread; 
But from the cradle's bound his w lling feet 
The errand of the moment w ent to meet. 

When learning's page unfolded to his view, 
Tlie quick disciple straight a teacher grew; 
And when the fight of freedom stirred the land. 
Armed was his heart and resolute his hand. 

Wise in the council, stalwart in the field ! 
Such rank supreme a workman's huts may yield. 
His onward steps like measured marbles show. 
Climbing the hight where Gods great flame doth 
glow. 

Ah ! Rose of joy, that hid'st a thorn so sharp ! 
Ah! Golden woof that meet'st a severed warp! 
Ah ! Solemn comfort that the stars rein down ! 
The Hero's garland his, the Martyr's crown ! 
Newport, September 25, 1881. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



HA... ® ®^3 785 754 6 



BY THOMAS NELSON 



September 6, 1881. 



A liero, long peerless in patience, is l.ving, 

And fighting on daily fierce battles for life ; 
For sixty-five days he seemed living and dying — 

His strength for the struggle, the chief in the strife. 
He lia<l fought many battles, and mastered with valor, — 

With poverty, rebels, political foes, — 
But now he fights "i>eath on his pale horse,",'and pallor. 

And Wiisting and weakness are wonderful woes! 
"One Chance in ii hundred" have heroes oft cherished. 

But "one in a thousand" 's a different thing; 
And now every hope in ten thousand hath perished 
■ But one— 'tis removal, as if on the wing. 
Where the breakers may roar aud the sea- beelzes sing; 

With courage undaunted to this he dotli cling. 



"The Federal City" lies folded iii beauty; 

The night hours pass cool over palace and cot; 
The watchers and doctors are waiting on duty, 

Where the great man, the good man is waiting his lot. 
» 
Of heroes tlie greatest, with heavenly graces. 

Chief Magistrate, chosen of Church and of State, 
The ruler revered of all realms aud all races. 

Now fettered with weakness is waiting lii.s fate; 
While prayers of the nation — all nations — uphold him 

From fainting and falling in Death's firm embrace; 
A wife's love and faith, toD, with life grasp enfold him, 

As fair and serene as the sheen on her face. 

The westward moon also keeps watch, like a lighthouse 

Betokening safety to some tossing bark, 
While the fringe of her mantle reflects on the "White 
House" 

A silvery silence from shade trees and park ; 
And now, the set day dawns, ye surgeons and nurses, 

For gray-sandled mom moves in sa.shes of gold ; 
Her fair face the misty, foul miasm disperses ; 

Her fond arms the hero, so faint, well enfold. 
'Tis the morn set for moving "His E.\cellence" eastward, 

Where Ocean's pure breezes will fan his pale brow ; 
Aud the whole land e.vpectant will list for the least word 

That tells of his journey, each movement, and how. 

For the- people with warm hearts in chill air have waited 
All night near to see him, so weighty in worth. 

Come forth on his couch with his country's hope freight- 
ed, — 

A life the most honored of all upon earth. 
The pulse of their hope, even, is heard in its beating. 

So still and so tender have stood the dense ciowd ; 
From the hour the last sun wiis in silence retreating. 

Not a voice nor a footstep is heard speaking loud. 
Then lift him up tenderly, lovingly, carefully; 

Do bring him down stairways with brave, stead}' hand, 
And place him in ambulance, bare-browed aud prayer- 
fully, 

For he is beloved through all tlie broad land ! 

Ye grooms lead your horses now gravely aud slowly 
Along the smooth pavement, between the live ma.ss 



(^if sympathy, looking— in high life and lowly— 

And watching and praying as ye softly pass; 
Let all in attendance, from surgeon to valet, 

Be kindness itself in your constancy's care; 
The President must rest undisturbed on his pallet. 

Anil be borne like a bird on the wings of your i)iay<*r 
So move to the palace car, place him on mattress liun;; 

As if upon eagle's wings poising in air, 

While "God bless hims" yearn forth from the old, l':iii 
and young — 

Nor fear the assassin can follow liini there ! 

The one pines in i)rison, who, once proudly dreamini; 

He could render immortal his miscreant name, 

Would murder even G.\KFiKi,u, just when he was beam- 
ing 

With life's fullest vigor and virtuous fame ; 

But Guiteau safely dreams of dread guerdons assembleil , 

And fancies the people are i>lotting his fate; 

All night long hath he tiodden his ilark cell and trem- 
bled, 

And now he peers grim through his iron-bound 
grate:— 

"What nieaneth," he saith, "this silent commotion? 

1 fear 'tis a mob that will tear me in twain !" — 
O, long let him dread loyal jieople's devotion 

To their virtuous Chieftain, his vice would have slain '■ 

Now the staunch Locomotive stands light-winged and 
steacly, 

With Engineer Page and Conductor on hand; 
The telegraph ticks that "the train is all ready,'" 

And the Country responds with a royal command : 
Fly on! noble Engine, like rustle of angels. 

Fly swiftly, bear safely the good man and great; 
Let reverent people flock near with evangels 

From station to station and State unto State; 
Let the elements help, Heaven's behests all obeying. 

Assist, speed the journey, with silence and joy, 
Whife the still hours proceed, wherein whole States are 
praying. 

And the distant old mother sighs, "God bless my boy !"' 



A hero, long peerless in patience, is lying, 

In the beautiful "Cottage," built close by the sea. 

Where doubtful days linger, 'twixt living and dying, 
Aud God only knows what is going to be; 

But the good man, the great man, who hath fought 
many battles. 
Whose will fairly won every war-rulHed field, 

Hears the shot round him fall like the rain drops' faint 
rattle. 

And his faith shall not fail— for that taith is his 
shield — 
"One chance in a hundred" have heroes oft cherished- 

Yet "one in a thousand" 's a different thing ; 
Aud though every hope in ten thousand hath perislied 

But one— Garfield's faith, that is folding its wing 
Where the breakers may roar and the sea breezes slug ; 

Still to this in repose our hopes ])rayerfully cling. 



